Mulder's strengths are his FBI-honed analytical skills and his dogged belief in the extraordinary. While Scully paradoxically brings her scientific objectivity and her woman's intuition to bear on their cases.

They are aided and abetted by Assistant Director Walter Skinner, The Lone Gunmen conspiracy theorists: Melvin Frohike, Ringo Langly and John Byers and their very own Deep Throat. In later years Mulder and Scully were joined by fellow agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes.

Arrayed against them are their arch enemy The Cigarette Smoking Man and their nemesis Alex Krycek in a worldwide plot initially beyond comprehension.

The X Files managed to combine flying saucers, the occult, big government paranoia and unresolved sexual tension into one of the most gripping and entertaining hours in television history.